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Friday, 24 August 2012

'The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I'by Stephen Alford

Release date: 30th August 2012

Published by: Allen Lane

ISBN No: 978 1846142604

Elizabeth I was a ruler who radiated a sense of power and purpose. Her long and
successful reign was a Golden Age of wealth, confidence, creativity,
Shakespeare's plays and Walter Raleigh's adventures: the apotheosis of the Tudor
dynasty. Across much of Europe, however, Elizabeth was viewed very differently.
She was 'Jezebel', the bastard offspring of Henry VIII's illegal second
marriage, a woman and a Protestant heretic. The pope denounced her as a heretic
schismatic tyrant and the most powerful rulers of Europe conspired to destroy
her, their plans most fully realized by the Spanish Armada. If Elizabeth's reign
was a golden age, then it was also a precarious one that required constant,
anxious surveillance against sometimes overwhelming threats. "The Watchers" is a
beautifully written, gripping account of the unflagging battle by spies, code
breakers, ambassadors and confidence-men to protect the queen. It was a reign
that required endless watchfulness - of the coasts, of the Catholic seminaries,
of Elizabeth's own subjects. The stakes could not have been higher: priests
coming secretly ashore were hunted down and executed, and assassination plots,
real and imagined, sprung up everywhere. Drawing on extraordinary secret files,
Stephen Alford brings to life this shadow world, where nobody could be trusted
and where a single mistake could have changed England's history drastically.
This is a dark, surprising and utterly compelling account of an extraordinary
reign.